The Protocol was an international emissions reduction treaty which required signatories to cut overall greenhouse gas emissions.

The IPCC subsequently produced the Special Report on Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry.

The report found that "carbon offsets" and "carbon trading" were viable ways to barter the right to pollute, because they would fund new forestry initiatives.

But one critical detail was never disclosed in the report.

That is: members of the IPCC, such as Pedro Moura-Costa (above) and Gareth Philips, had major conflicts-of-interest. They owned, created and/or worked for businesses -- such as Ecosecurities and SGS Forestry -- that would directly profit from the report's conclusions.

In fact, the IPCC panel members' companies were positioned to earn millions of dollars from the report. But the mainstream media did not report these conflicts and instead piled on the "global warming" and "carbon offset" bandwagons.

The World Rainforest Movement, for example, investigated these bizarre financial ties and concluded that the IPCC report must "...be shelved due to their clear conflict of interest and a new report instigated which will be free of the taint of intellectual corruption."

All that said, the real problem — and the reason Pelosi really does deserve blame — is that Democrats’ political goal of reducing carbon emissions continues to trump their populist rhetoric on gasoline prices. The two stances are impossible to reconcile. Try as they might to blame oil companies for the pain Americans feel at the pump, the Democrats want higher prices for gasoline — and for all forms of energy that emit carbon. Economic barriers against CO2 emissions are a requirement for environmental progress in the Democrats’ view, and this is the entire purpose of the carbon cap-and-trade system... to create economic disincentives for emitting CO2.

Because of the falsity of its premise, cap-and-trade is intended to do one thing: allow Democrats to control industrial policy.

Living, as I do, among some of the craziest Leftists in America; it is only through that experience that my shock, due to the President's declaration that "we need to grow our economy", allows me to appreciate the sense of shock felt by many on the Left. The intelligentsia of the Left assert that only by down-sizing our economy, can we create a sustainable economy, and one that promotes social justice.

These people posit that it is the role of government to adopt policies that promote a shrinking economy. That the President was able to set aside Noam Chomsky for a day begs the question; who got to the President?

Sure, the Left feels betrayed. I'd just like to know who shot the unicorn at the White House..